Christina Sarich – Kashi will pay $4 million in a false advertising lawsuit put forth in Florida. The lawsuit claimed that Kellogg’s, the parent company for Kashi, advertised an “all natural” (GM-free) product that was, in reality, full of genetically modified ingredients.

The settlement resolves a class action lawsuit against the company alleging that its products were falsely labeled as being “all natural” and containing “nothing artificial,” suggesting that they were free of genetically modified organisms.

Multiple Kashi products contain GM soy and GM corn, and a district judge argued that this “sufficiently alleges that a reasonable consumer would expect a product labeled ‘all natural’ to be free of GMOs.”

Kashi is also paying for a similar settlement in California:

“In a settlement filed in the southern district of California on May 2, Kashi said it would pay $5m to resolve a class action lawsuit accusing it of falsely advertising scores of products from GoLean bars to Kashi Pita Crisps as ‘all natural’ or with ‘nothing artificial’ when they in fact contained one or more of ‘an array of chemicals’ which the plaintiffs argued a reasonable consumer would consider unnatural”

This is an enormous win considering that the DARK act, which would prohibit states from instituting GM bans or GM labeling, has almost become law. It also is a testament to the changing tide in consumer’s attitude toward Big Food. Not only are citizens saying they want their food labeled, but they will no longer sit idly by while companies like Kellogg’s (or Pepsi, General Mills, etc.) lie about what is in food products. Continue reading →